In Search of Zarathustra [Pre-Islamic Iran once again making a strong come back]

Boston Review ^ | 9/5/04 | Jehangir Pocha

[F14 Pilot]

You are wrong

[Ptarmigan]

Interesting. I know Lebanon and Syria is where Phoenicia was. Egypt is where Ancient Egypt existed. Iraq is present day Mesopotamia. Iran is Persia. Palestinian Arabs I read are actually not full bled Arab, but have some Turkish ancestry.

[Clemenza]

Re #49: Great pictures.

Ms. Bakhtiar is the ONLY reason to tolerate CNN.

[Cronos]

Not just their hair --- if they go out in public they have to put an ugly brown chador over their stylish western clothes.

Sorry pal, you're wrong -- and the pictures are proof of that. That may be the case in the villages and when the Islamimic revolution first hit, but it's not that way now.

Persian women are gorgeous and terribly fashionable.

[freedom44]

I always enjoy your posts. Thanks again for an intellectual analysis of history.

I agree that Syria, Egypt and Iraq weren't historically Arabs, but frankly they're three of the most nationalistic Arab nations in the Mid-East. Pan-Arab Nationalism was fronted and advocated by Nasser, and to a lesser degree Sadat and Mubarak. Saddam was another Arab nationalist, his defense minister claimed that ethnic minorities in the region must be crushed. This mentality has also been embraced by the Assads in Syria.

Iranians were never Arabs and inspite of the loose cultural spin by the reigning Mullahs, Iranians have never become Arabs. In fact, pre-1979 Iranians consistently prided themselves on their ethnical divide with those in the region. Even after '79 during the Iran-Iraq wars every single Arab country joined their Arab brothers in Iraq to crush the enemy Persians.

The prejudice between Arabs and Iranians is strong and deep. Persian Satellite TV lambasts Arabs on a regular basis. There are popular political commentators like Shahram Homayoun, and Zia Atabay who talk of Arabs like they're the dirt of the earth. These comments not only accepted within the community, but often times praised.

The vast Persian-Arab divide is something majority of Americans do not understand. I was talking to someone who's father was a mid-east analyst. Even he kept saying "Muslims" will never get along there will always be a geebeho and jeebeeho ethnic divide, the level of understanding of the historical aspects of the region is astonishing.. to say the least.

[Cronos]

Thanks for that. When I sayIslam IS radicalism, I meant that trueIslam as preached by the prophet when he moved to Mecca IS highly violent. you can counter that by pulling out tracts from the OT. However, the OT in those tracts treats them as history -- the Israelites were told to DO that (past tense), we are not told to DO those acts (present tense).

InIslam, people are told to DO them (present and past tense combined), the injunctions to not make friends with infidels and to attack them are continuous tense and so a uslim doing such acts would think of himself as doing good. That is the difference. You cannot de-radicalise slam without destroyign it.

[Cronos]

Palestinian Arabs I read are actually not full bled Arab, but have some Turkish ancestry.

Well, that is true -- the area was called Palestine in the 1800s and was mostly desert. THen the jews started moving back there and with their ingenuity they made the desert blossom. ARabs from around the Arab world came to live there -- from Egypt, Syria, Iraq probably some turks too -- drawn by this created paradise. They are hence, as much immigrants as Eastern EuropeanJews.

[Cronos]

I agree that Syria, Egypt and Iraq weren't historically Arabs, but frankly they're three of the most nationalistic Arab nations in the Mid-East. Pan-Arab Nationalism was fronted and advocated by Nasser, and to a lesser degree Sadat and Mubarak. Saddam was another Arab nationalist, his defense minister claimed that ethnic minorities in the region must be crushed. This mentality has also been embraced by the Assads in Syria.

You are very very right about the Pan-Arab nationalism of these three states -- Egypt and Syria were part of the Arab Republic in the 50s and have very similar flags.  And in Iraq's case we had a dilemma -- Saddam promoted religious tolerance -- the Chaldean christians were treated pretty well by him -- example Tariq Aziz, as long as people followed him blindly, he didn't care about their religious affiliations.  But they are ARAB Christians.  SAddam, like most Sunni Arabs strongly dislike Persians (memories of centuries of conquest) and the Shia heresy.  Kurds are related to the Iranis, so hence his paranoia.   in the case of Syria, Christians are treated very very well -- as are the few Jews remaining there (strange, but true).  and there are very few ethnic minorities.

However, in the case of Egypt, christians ARE second class citizens now under Hosni Mubarak's dwindling power

        

Egypt                                                                               Syria

Iraq

Iranians were never Arabs and inspite of the loose cultural spin by the reigning Mullahs, Iranians have never become Arabs.

True, the first thing they did after converting was to set up their own state and to become Shias to distinguish themselves from the Sunni ARabs.  Maybe that was a conscious decision?

In fact, pre-1979 Iranians consistently prided themselves on their ethnical divide with those in the region. Even after '79 during the Iran-Iraq wars every single Arab country joined their Arab brothers in Iraq to crush the enemy Persians.

Correct again-- the Sauds in particular are sh** scared that the Persians will wake up again and reconquer the place -- they evern renamed the Persian gulf to the Arabian gulf.  For the same reason the Arabs dislike the Turks.

The prejudice between Arabs and Iranians is strong and deep. Persian Satellite TV lambasts Arabs on a regular basis. There are popular political commentators like Shahram Homayoun, and Zia Atabay who talk of Arabs like they're the dirt of the earth. These comments not only accepted within the community, but often times praised.

Bud, I lived in Bahrain for some time -- and it's got a huge Irani population.  It's also a pretty liberal society (where else can you see Arab and Irani women in Mini-skirts, and trust me, in beauty they  are far far better than many American women!).  Anyway, there's a causeway built between the Saudi Mainland and Bahrain and every Thursday tons of Saudis come across to enjoy the good life -- booze and women.  And every Thursday the locals grumble that hte saudi savages are coming across.  Saudis are mostly despised in the rest of ARabia -- not only in Bahrain but also in Oman and Jordan.  I don't know about the Egyptian feelings but I'd guess they are the same

The vast Persian-Arab divide is something majority of Americans do not understand. I was talking to someone who's father was a mid-east analyst. Even he kept saying "Muslims" will never get along there will always be a geebeho and jeebeeho ethnic divide, the level of understanding of the historical aspects of the region is astonishing.. to say the least.

Well, there has always been animosity between Semitics and Aryans -- the Iranis are more closely related to both Europeans and Indians than they are related to the Semitic Arabs.

Most Americans don't even get the ethnic and religious diversity in the entire swathe of land from Greece to the phillipines.  Take the Caucasus for example -- Ossetians are related to the Persians, as are the Azerbaijanis and Kurds.  But the Ossetians are Orthodox Christians.  The Chechens, Ingush and Dagestanis are a distinct people, unrealted to others.  The ABhkhazians are also a distinct people.  THe Georgians and Armenians have common history at many points but are subtly different. 

Iraq has Aryan Kurds to the north (in the former Turkish province of Mosul), Arab Sunnis around Baghdad (Turkish province of BAghdad) and Shia Arabs to the South (Turkish province of Basra), all put together in an unwieldy group by the Brit who wanted the oil fields int he north and south united.

The Iranis, have a large Azeri population to the north-west, they have ARabs to the south-west, Persians in the centre, Turks to the north and Baluchis to the south east

The Baluchis again, are NOT Iranis, but more an Indic people.  If you move further to the north, you'll see the mixture of ethnic and religious groups in AFghanistan: The Tajiks are Irani, the Uzbeks, Turkmen, etc. are Turkic, the Hazaras are Mongol, descendents of Genghiz Khan's Golden Horde while the Pashtuns and Baluchis are Indic people

And then you get to an even more complicated, ethnic, religious, secatrian, linguistic etc. etc. mix-- India.  I can't even fathom the mixture they have there, so, I'll just post the linguistic map -- or at least for the officially recongnised 15 odd languages (with a few hundred other non-recognized languages not depicted)

And the religious split:

[Cronos]

And to post a sign of the Hindu swastik:
Hitler truly did debase German culture. I think he damaged the German people as much as he damaged the non-Jewish others. What a madman.

[F14 Pilot]

The colors of those flags represent the symbols and ideas.

If I am right, black stands for their Pan Arabism, Red stands for the Baath party, Green stands for Islamic heritage and so on.

[dennisw]

Good news....anything beats wacko Mohammedanism. And if the smelly Ayatollahs aren't wacko Mohammedans then no one is.

[dennisw]

Normal good looking women trapped in Muslim costumes and hijabs. What a waste of womanhood. Show the power of Muhammadan brainwashing and idiotic Ayatollah driven conformity.....

[Cronos]

something like that -- plus the Egyptian flag features the eagle of the Caliph Saladin, the Syrian flag is a remnant of the Arab Republic which was a union of Egypt and Syria while the IRaqi flag is similar to the Syrian only with Allahu Akbar written between the stars and 3 stars to represent the 3 provinces

[freedom44]

Hardly "normal" looking. Persian females are far superior to the majority of fat pigs we have to look at in their skimpy outfits here in the US.

To counter we need laws banning females of certain weight limits from wearing skimpy outfits. It's scary to say the least.

[F14 Pilot]

Sure and these 3 colors are common among many Arab state flags.

Allhu akbar on the Iraqi flag written By saddam in 1991.

[freedom44]

Same written by Islamic Republic of Iran.

[F14 Pilot]

You forgot that ONION thing on the center of their flag.

LOL

[7.62 x 51mm]

Bookmarking for later.

[dennisw]

Broward county Florida has so many obese women. You couild get trampled by this herd of elephants if you go to Wal Mart.

The Black women have it worse than the white ones. Especailly the Haitian ladies. It seems no one goes hungry or misses a meal down here. I think lack of cold winter temperatures makes it worse.

[Cronos]

Regarding the "onion thing":

The symbol consists of four crescents and a sword. The four crescents are meant to stand for the word Allah (there is indeed some resemblence to the Arabic writing of it). The five parts of the emblem symbolize the five principles of Islam. Above the sword (central part) is a "tashdid" (looks a bit like a W). In Arabic writing this is used to double a letter, here it doubles the strength of the sword.

The flag's centrepiece formerly comprised a lion with a sword standing before a reising sun, with a crown above, but all traditional flags and banners were abolished after the abdication of the shah in 1979.

There are Arabic writings in the border line of the stripes. These are 22 copies of the main Islamic phrase Allahu Akbar meaning "God is greater (than everything)".

It IS a sign of Arab domination -- what with the Arabic writing. The flag under the Shah was